SOURCE: "Carnival in Cologne: A Reading of Heinrich Böll's Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum" in AUMLA, No. 63, May, 1985, pp. 33-42.

In the following essay, Holbeche explores the significance of the carnival in Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum.

Criticism of Heinrich Böll's Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum has only briefly addressed the question of the significance of the carnival which provides such a suggestive backdrop to this melodramatic tale. Traditionally a period of gaiety and frivolity preceding Lent, whose origins, although still a subject of some dispute, can be traced to ancient Greek, Roman, Germanic and Celtic mid-winter and spring festivals and fertility cults, the carnival has long been celebrated with processions and parades, masquerades and street threatre. For a brief period of time the social order is turned upside down as the donning of masks or costumes enables individuals to step outside their...